LOVE OF A POET is a chamber opera and dramatic enactment of Robert Schumann’s 1840 song cycle, DICHTERLIEBE. A sad poet obsesses over a doomed and unrequited love. Haunted by nightmares and grief, he sings his songs, vacillating between sobs and anger and laughter, interacting with the elements, plunging his head in the bucket of water, collapsing face first into the pile of dirt. At his most desperate, he attempts suicide. Ultimately, after so much emotion, it is nature that rouses him, as he sits and eats a piece of cake, the tears stream down his stoic face, the lights fading to the final chords of Schumann’s haunting music.

Story, direction, costume design, by John Kelly
music by Robert Schumann
lyrics by Heinrich Heine/Joseph Von Eichendorff
English texts by Michael Feingold
music direction and piano accompaniment by Fernando Torm-Toha/ Christopher Cooley (2015)
set design by Huck Snyder
film sections by Anthony Chase
environmental design by Pure Madderlake
visual installation by Jarrod Beck (2015)
lighting design by Stan Pressner

Produced by Dance Theatre Workshop, Creative Time, Inc. and Liz Dunn for John Kelly Performance.

Premiere: Battery Maritime Building, NY, October 1990.
Revival: consulting producer Craig Hensala with The Arts Center at Governors Island, through Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, June 2015.